For me, I woke with more pressing
matters as the Holy Spirit spoke to me this morning while I was
waking up. The Holy Spirit was speaking to me on entitlement
spirituality. What's that? Well, read on.
One of the goals I had for writing the
book, A Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare, was to teach others about
spiritual authority through Jesus Christ. It simply was not taught at
my church. In 2007, when I found myself in the center of a horrible
demonic attack I didn't know what to do. Over the next year, the Holy
Spirit became my teacher and showed me a lot of things I didn't know
about my spiritual authority. I took strides in my walk with Jesus,
both in faith and in trust. Even to this day, the Holy Spirit is
revealing more and more to me about the extent of our spiritual
authority and how far it extends. The reason I made such strides in
my spiritual walk was because I stood in my spiritual authority. When
I was first under spiritual attack, I didn't run to my pastor and beg
him to pray for me. Nor did I organize a prayer group to pray for me.
I spiritually owned the situation I was in and trusted in Jesus he
would do something about it.
In December of 2007, I was under severe
attack with 7x24 demonic voices. The spirits were attacking my
spiritual gifts of discernment. I was trying to help someone, whom I
later found out, didn't want to be helped, was under demonic attack.
The demons knew this Sunday dress up Christian didn't want help. It
was a trap to suck me in and attack me. And attack they did. After 7
days of voices bombardment, I couldn't take it anymore and they
almost won. They almost drove me to a nervous breakdown. But I did
something unusual. Well, something unusual to the modern church. I
took a stand against the demons and ordered them to shut up in the
name of Christ. I stood my ground in my spiritual authority and
ordered them to silence in the name of Jesus Christ! It took about an
hour for the voices to shutdown. Then, by evening, my head was
wonderfully, intoxicatingly, absolutely, silent!
That was a ground shaking day in my
spiritual life. Most people can tell you when they became believers
and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I was raised in the
Catholic Church and I was born with a cross in my hand, so to speak.
What I can tell you though, is when I woke up and became a
deeply passionate follower of Jesus. It was December 2007. What a wild
Christmas season that was.
From that day forward, God has been
taking me deeper into him and into spiritual warfare. I don't have an
incredibly perfect prayer life. There are some days where I am too
busy to read the Bible. And that bothers me. But I do have an
incredible relationship with the heavenly Father, the creator of the
universe, his son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. It is through the
relationship with God, that the authority in Christ is present. It is through my relationship with Jesus, that I am royalty. Jesus bought me and he bought you with a price.
Now, when I wrote A Field Guide to
Spiritual Warfare, it's targeted audience were people knee deep in
their own warfare. People who bought a ton of books on how to route
demons, and deliverance, but the books weren't adequate, because
they said nothing about SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY!!!
Aside, from quoting Luke 10:18-19, what
does it mean to have spiritual authority? And why did Jesus see Satan
fall like lightning? It's because the 70 disciples took a stand
against the forces of darkness and kicked it's shadowy evil butt!
When you stand in authority, you are standing against the forces of
darkness. Many Christians in America, couldn't spiritually fight
there own way out of a paper bag. That's how far we've allowed our
spiritual authority to be given back into the hands of the enemy.
Part of this the pulpit is to blame. But also, it's the seminary
schools, for ill equipping pastors for spiritual warfare. Academia is
rarely on the battlefield and it's hard to teach about war unless
you've been through a few major campaigns. What makes a better
teacher of war history, a Harvard professor, or vet? We're losing
ground in the seminary and the pulpit on this. Which means a weakened
body of Christ. Plain and simple we have slowly been handing our
spiritual authority back over to the prince of the world.
The odd spin off of this effect is what
I call the entitlement spirituality. My ministry has seen this time
and time again, where a Christian brings us into their battle and
expects us to fight it FOR them. I have said this at speaking
engagements, that I will not stand next to a Christian in battle who
is unwilling to hold up their own sword in battle. I hear some scoffs
and some sighs in the audience. Then I pause, and tell them, I will
stand next to a Christian who is at least standing and shaking with
their sword. Because at least they chose to put up a fight. From
there the ministry can work with a person and teach them to fight
their own battles. Yes, you read that correctly. Victory comes
through fighting your own battles! In our entitlement society, we
expect others to do everything for us. From the cradle to the grave.
And now we have dysfunctional Christians in the pews. We get numerous
calls from people who gave up without a fight and want us to battle
for them.
We are a society that is self-absorbed
with the occult and the paranormal. We are becoming dangerously
fascinated by witchcraft. Christian witches are becoming a problem
with churches. They show up as intercessors! The average Christian,
we have seen through our ministry, has more misinformation in their
heads from paranormal shows. They know little about the true Biblical
way to fight off the forces of darkness.
What should you do if you're under
spiritual attack? Go to the heavenly Father and speak with him. Then
stand on your authority Jesus gave you and trust Jesus is going to do
something about your situation. Most churches religiously tell you to
put on your armor daily. Well, I am in spiritual warfare, I don't
sleep naked! Which means I never take my armor off! Put your armor on
and leave it on.
Do not become obsessed with the demonic
attacks. This is a weapon of the enemy. Disbelief that the Father is
not going to help you is another weapon of theirs. You must stand
your ground, remain calm and pray. Command the voices to shut up!
In the name of Jesus Christ I bind you
and command you to shut up! Now release my spiritual hearing in the
name of Jesus.
This is a method of warfare for someone
who has recently come under attack. Not for someone who is demonized,
that is they hear spirits and they manifest them. This person
requires deliverance ministry or clergy member from the office of
exorcism to help them.
A lot of instructions of spiritual
warfare can be found, in my book, A Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare.
Many times people buy a lot of books from popular Christian authors,
only to find out the author has an academic theological understanding
of spiritual warfare and not battlefield information. I receive
numerous e-mails from readers with them writing, “Wow! You get it.
That's what I needed to know!” Yes, we get it. M16 Ministries is a
battlefield ministry.
God Bless
Mike
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